


Begin Again

by RubyRollup



Category: British Actor RPF, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 21:45:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16104443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyRollup/pseuds/RubyRollup
Summary: I started writing this two years ago. I've revised this a million times, and have a vague idea of an ending (which is, cliche, a happy one for Tom and the OFC), but am no closer to figuring out how to get there.So, if you're reading this, and it interests you, please help a girl out with suggestions or prompts. The creative fountain is bone dry, and I'm asking for some donations from generous souls such as yourselves.I am very open to criticism...if something reads shit, please let me know (comments are life, even bad ones)





	Begin Again

**_CHAPTER 1_ **

_ (Tom’s POV) _

I’ve always found the mere touch of the black and faded white ivory keys strangely comforting, whether I’m playing the classics or one of my own compositions. The old girl, has been in our family for three generations, and she has been my darling since I started learning to play on her at the age of six. At the age of fourteen, she became my solace and my voice; that was the year my parents got divorced and my piano tutor discovered that she could better gauge my moods through my mutations of Beethoven or Debussy.

If she could hear me now, she would probably call a priest to ‘exorcise the demon’.

It’s been a strange month. My sister Emma and her daughter Heather came to London for our mother’s funeral. Despite the fact that she got our palatial family home, enough money to sustain her for five lifetimes and sole custody of her children, my mother never got over her separation from our father. Her decline was slow at first - occasionally forgetting to have us fetched from school, withdrawing from extended family - but rapidly escalated when Dad died a few months later.

Emma was always the sympathetic one - indulging Mother’s moods and lamentations about him. With her bubbly personality, she was also able to sometimes lighten Mother’s mood. I never understood how any person could carry a torch for an emotional tyrant like my father. But we never said anything - and while Emma saw to Mother, I tried to see to everything else.

As much as we tried to help her pick up the threads of our life and move on (God knows we were able to materially) we could not stop her from indulging in the thing that eventually claimed her life four weeks ago. Our mother drowned her sorrows (and her liver) in the contents of the enormous cellar in our home.

I am sad that my mother is gone. But coupled with my sadness is an enormous sense of relief. I will miss her, but at the same time I am happy that her suffering (and mine) is at an end.

Somehow, with all of this going on, Emma was a bigger worry. Not only did she come for the funeral  _ without _ her husband Alex (who, apparently, was detained by work), she was supposed to have left for home two weeks ago already. What about work? Was Heather not missing school?

I love my sister. I love Heather. But I’ve gotten used to being alone, and them being here for so long…let’s just say I’m not entirely comfortable with females and their emotions. The last time I saw Heather in person, she was a cheerful ten year-old, always excited to talk to or visit with her Uncle Tom. I’m at a complete loss with the aloof fifteen year-old, who greeted me with a handshake and a slightly frosty ‘Uncle Tom’ when I met them at Heathrow.

Emma’s silence at our mother’s funeral was expected. I did not expect that silence to endure. Apart from the necessary conversation with either Heather or me, she’s taken to spending hours in my mother’s favourite chair, staring into space. No crude jokes, no riotous reprimands, no tears – just a deafening silence.  I tried to worm details out of her, but she dodged my covert efforts. Eventually I mustered up the courage to ask her about it directly and the ensuing conversation definitely ranks as one of the most uncomfortable we’ve ever had. It did explain her delay, her withdrawal and Heather’s chilly reserve. It is a reaction I am familiar with, having been the one who discovered my own father’s infidelity as a child.

History seems to be repeating itself with Heather – hopefully, my sister won’t turn into our mother.

Emma has decided to move back to England with Heather. She’s going back to the States for a while, to pack up the rest of their things and finalize her divorce proceedings, but before she leaves, Heather needs to be settled.  The timing of the funeral was unfortunately in the middle of the school year. Heather is by no means a struggling student, but the British schooling system is somewhat different from the American way. Starting at a new school now would mean more catching up than learning. 

Which brings us to this evening.

A tutor will be home-schooling Heather until the start of the next school year. For the next five months, not only will there be a sullen teenager lurking around the house, there will be a stranger here for most of the day. I’m trying to take some comfort from the fact that he was recommended by my old school headmaster – the prickliest character you’ll ever meet, so this tutor would, at the very least, not be a psychopath.

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this two years ago. I've revised this a million times, and have a vague idea of an ending (which is, cliche, a happy one for Tom and the OFC), but am no closer to figuring out how to get there.
> 
> So, if you're reading this, and it interests you, please help a girl out with suggestions or prompts. The creative fountain is bone dry, and I'm asking for some donations from generous souls such as yourselves.
> 
> I am very open to criticism...if something reads shit, please let me know (comments are life, even bad ones)


End file.
